Apple Cider Donuts

Cider donuts from Honeypot Hill

One of my favorite things about fall is apple cider donuts.  They have to come fresh from an apple orchard from New England, though, preferably on a brisk, sunny day.  I've tried the ones they sell at super markets and even the state fair, but they're just not the same.

If you've never had one before, you might be disappointed to hear that they don't really taste like apple cider.  That said, they're still incredibly delicious and pair perfectly with a nice, cold glass of cider.  I like my cider donuts on the small side, coated with cinnamon and sugar, and, most importantly, fresh from the fryer so that they're still warm and crispy.  The interior should be cakey, but not dry, and never, ever greasy.

Luckily, even if you don't live in New England, you can make your own as long as you can get your hands on some real apple cider:  the cloudy, unfiltered kind that burns just a little bit on the way down your throat, not the weak, see through stuff they sell off-season.

Apple Cider Donuts (from Food52)
makes 10-12 donuts

1 cup apple cider
2 3/4 cups cake flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
2/3 cups sugar
2 tablespoons non-hydrogenated shortening
1 egg
1 egg yolk
1/3 cup buttermilk
canola oil, for frying
1/2 cup sugar, for topping
2 teaspoons cinnamon, for topping

Bring the apple cider to a boil over high heat and cook it until it has reduced to 1/3 cup, 7-10 minutes. Set aside to cool while you prepare the rest of the donuts.

   
Sift the cake flour, baking powder, salt and nutmeg.

   
In the bowl of a stand mixer, mix the shortening and sugar together on medium speed until sandy. Add in the egg and egg yolk and mix on high until light and thickened, about 5 minutes.
  
Mix the reduced apple cider and buttermilk together. Then add the flour mixture, alternating with the milk mixture to the mixer in three additions mixing until just combined. The dough will be soft and sticky much like cookie dough.

  
Transfer the mixture to a clean bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Refrigerate the dough for at least one hour or overnight.
   
When you are ready to roll and fry the donuts, heat a large pot or dutch oven with at least 2 inches of oil over medium heat until the oil reaches 370ºF on a candy thermometer.

Gently roll the chilled dough out onto a generously floured board or piece of parchment paper into a circle about 1/2'' thick and about 8'' wide.

Cut as many donuts as possible, making sure to flour the cutters before each cut.  If at any time the dough becomes too soft to handle, just put it in the refrigerator for a few minutes. Place the cut donuts on a parchment lined baking sheet and refrigerate for 15 minutes until they are slightly firm and easier to handle. While the donuts are chilling, stir together the cinnamon and sugar for the topping in a shallow, wide bowl.

   
Brush off any excess flour and fry the donuts for about 1 minute per side, being careful not to crowd the pan.  When the donuts are deep golden brown on each side, remove them from the oil, gently blot off excess oil and toss immediately in the cinnamon sugar.

I had a couple of issues with this version:  the finished product was a little too dense for my liking, the outside was only barely crispy, even fresh out of the fryer, and I had a hard time getting the cinnamon and sugar to stick to the donut.  My friends who got to try them liked them enough, though, so I probably just have really high standards when it comes to cider donuts.  Next time I might try Smitten Kitchen's version, which are fried in Crisco.

Next:  Pluot Lambic Sorbet
Previously:  Salted Butter Caramel Apple Pie with Vodka Pie Crust
Last year:  Caramelized Onion and Swiss Chard Quiche

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Homemade Cronuts

I got a request from a friend last week to make some cronuts so that he would know whether or not they were worth waiting in line for at Dominique Ansel's bakery.  If you haven't heard of the cronut yet, it's a cross between a croissant and a donut created by Ansel.  Basically, croissant dough is cut into a donut shape, deep-fried, filled with pastry cream, and then glazed on top.  Only 200-250 are made a day so now there's a whole black market for them with some scalpers selling them for upwards of $40 per cronut (normally priced at $5).  Crazy, right?

At first I was hesitant to make my own because from my previous experience with making croissants, it would take at least 2.5 days, but then while surfing the web for other bloggers' attempts at home, I found this post using "20 minutes croissant dough".  That sounded much more feasible!

I made a few changes to the original recipe:  instead of using a food processor to cut the butter into the flour, I grated frozen sticks of butter and then added that to the flour mixture, partly because my food processor is too small to handle the volume of butter and flour in the recipe and partly because it was fun to do.

Instead of using caster sugar (a finer sugar than granulated, but not as fine as confectioner's), I used plain granulated sugar for the lemon sugar.  I realized my mistake when I had a hard time making the lemon sugar stick to the just-fried donuts.  Since caster sugar isn't readily available in the States, I'd recommend using a food processor to grind regular granulated sugar into a super-fine, but not powdered, consistency.

Lastly, I tried making the filling in the recipe, but it came out way too thin and drippy for me to consider piping into the cronut.  I guess I was expecting something more the consistency of the cream inside a Dunkin' Donuts Boston Cream donut, which is basically pudding-like.  The filling I made was already dripping out of the pastry bag before I could even apply any pressure to it!  So I ended up just rolling the cronuts in the lemon sugar and glazing it with the lemon icing.  I think it would've been nice to have had a cream filling, but it was fine without it, too.

Lemon Glazed Cronuts (adapted from The Boy Who Bakes)
makes about 10 large cronut, 6 medium size cronuts and 16 mini-cronuts

For the cronuts
120 ml milk, 90-95°F
130 ml water, 90-95°F
12 g dry active yeast
250 g all-purpose flour
250 g bread flour
60 g sugar
1 teaspoon salt
300 g unsalted butter, frozen

For the lemon sugar and glaze

75 g sugar

1 lemon
Confectioner's sugar

Place the milk, water and yeast into a small bowl and mix to combine, set aside. Place the flours, sugar, and salt into a large bowl and mix to combine.

Grate the butter using the largest holes of a grater and toss with the flour mixture once you get a handful grated butter.  Keep grating and tossing with the flour mixture so that the butter doesn't clump together.

Once all the butter has been tossed into the flour mixture, add the yeast solution and stir gently just until combined, trying to moisten everything without making the butter any smaller. Gently knead the dough until it comes together into a ball.  Cover the bowl and let the dough rest in the refrigerator for a few hours.

After the dough has rested place it on a well floured work surface. Roll the dough out into a roughly 15"x15" square. Fold the dough in thirds, like a business letter, brushing off any excess flour.  Turn the dough 90° and repeat the rolling,folding, and rotating process two more times, giving the dough a total of three turns.

Using a sharp knife, cut the rectangle in half crosswise.  Wrap both pieces of dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight before using.

The next day, roll out one of the two pieces of dough to about 1 cm thick, much thicker than you would roll the dough if making a croissant. Using a 3 1/2" cookie cutter (I used a large jar lid), cut out 5 donuts and then using a 1" cutter cut out the holes.

If you want, cut out a hole in the 1" circle with a straw to make mini-cronuts.  I also cut out medium-sized cronuts from the scrap dough.  Repeat with the other piece of dough.  Allow the cronuts to proof at room temperature while you prepare the lemon sugar and lemon glaze.

To make the lemon sugar, add the sugar to a food processor and grind until the sugar has a super-fine consistency but is not yet powdered.  Carefully empty the contents into a wide bowl.  Zest the lemon, and add the lemon zest to the sugar.  Rub the zest and the sugar together until thoroughly mixed.  Cover and set aside.

To make the glaze, juice the lemon.  Add enough confectioner's sugar to the lemon juice until you have a thick, pipeable mixture; you are looking for a thickness similar to toothpaste. I think I ended up using over 2 cups of confectioner's sugar, although I stopped keeping track after a while.  Press plastic wrap onto the surface of the glaze to prevent it crusting over and set aside until needed.

When ready to fry fill a thick bottomed saucepan two thirds full with vegetable oil and place over medium heat and bring to 170°C. When at temperature fry the cronuts two at a time (I also put in a few of the smaller cronuts in at the same time).

Fry the cronuts for a couple minutes each side, or until deep golden brown.

Using a metal slotted spoon remove from the pan and place onto a wire rack set over paper towels. Once cooled enough to handle roll the outside of the cronuts in the lemon sugar, set aside to cool completely.

For the decoration place the glaze into a piping bag, snip off the end, and pipe a ring around the top.  Serve immediately.

So the verdict?  When I took my first bite, it reminded me of something else, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it.  Then I realized, it tasted a lot like the sugared donut holes you sometimes see at Chinese buffets.  Which, don't get me wrong, are delicious.  But I'm not sure making a cronut was worth all the effort, even though I had only made a simplified version.

As you can see from the cross-section, I didn't really get the layers you expect from a croissant dough, although there was definitely plenty of air pockets.  If anything, the texture reminded me of the lilikoi malasadas I made, which while really delicious, are definitely not worth $40.

If I were to ever really crave a cronut, I'd probably just pick up a package of frozen croissants from Trader Joe's, thaw them in the fridge, roll and cut them out, and then let them proof before frying them.

Update:  So the other day while I was cleaning out my freezer, I happened upon some of the homemade croissant dough that I had stashed away and forgotten about.  I saw no other option than to try making cronuts out of it, and the result was drastically different than my above attempt with the "20 minute" croissant dough.  Just look at this:

Even without a pretty ring of glaze you can immediately see how much better it looks with all the different layers.  The texture was a lot crispier, and my friend Christine took to eating her cronut layer by layer, which would've been impossible with the other cronuts I made.  This time I also filled the middle with some coconut whipped cream sweetened with lemon sugar.  The whole thing was still a little too greasy for me, but I'm glad I tried it out nonetheless.

Three years ago:  Elote (Grilled Mexican Corn)

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Lilikoi Malasadas (or Portuguese Donuts filled with Passion Fruit Curd)

About a month ago, I got an e-mail from my brother with a link to a recipe for lilikoi malasadas. He asked if I thought they would be hard to make because he had had some in Hawaii and they were "amaaazing". I skimmed through the recipe quickly and replied, "Doesn't sound that hard as long as you can get me some unsweetened lilikoi (or passion fruit) concentrate and unsweetened guava concentrate. No idea where I'd even find that stuff.... Also, if you can get me a stand mixer with a dough hook, I'd be all set." And that was the end of that conversation.

Until last week when I announced on Facebook that I had finally caved in and bought a KitchenAid stand mixer. While most of my friends were congratulating me on the purchase, Timmy's only comment was "can you try making those lilikoi malasadas now?" Can you tell he's a younger brother?

There was still the issue of finding lilikoi concentrate and guava concentrate in the Boston area. I checked Shaws and Harvest and even Whole Foods with no luck. Then I looked on-line, and there were some suggestions of trying a local Brazilian grocery store, but then I saw some posts that mentioned I should be able to find it at Shaws in the frozen foods section where the Goya products are. So I went back to Shaws, and lo and behold, there was frozen passion fruit pulp! And when I went back to Harvest later on, I was able to find frozen guava pulp there!

Now that I had all the ingredients and equipment I needed (I actually had to borrow a stand mixer from Susan because mine hadn't come in yet; thanks, Susan!), I had no more excuses, so I spent this past Saturday making these beauties. Note: this recipe does take quite a bit of time what with making the dough, letting it rise, then chilling it for 2 hours, then shaping and letting it rise again, then frying it, and finally filling the malasadas with the passion fruit curd. But it's so, so worth it, especially if you don't live in Hawaii and can't just buy these at a local bakery whenever you want. Also, I did make the guava coulis from the original recipe, but I thought the resulting coulis was way too watery, so I'm not including it here. The malasadas were more than fine without it.

Lilikoi Malasadas (from here)
makes 50 donuts

Lilikoi Curd

1 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter
1 1/2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1/4 cup thawed lilikoi (passion fruit) pulp
6 egg yolks, beaten

In a small saucepan, mix together the sugar, butter, lemon and lilikoi pulp; bring to a boil.

In a small mixing bowl, whip the eggs yolks with 1/4 of the hot lilikoi mixture; pour the yolk mixture back to the saucepan.

Simmer, uncovered, whisking continuously until thickened and starts to bubble. Do not allow the lilikoi curd to come to a to a full boil or the eggs will start curdling. Strain and chill.

Malasadas

3 cups bread flour
1/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon + 1/2 teaspoon dry yeast
7 eggs
2 teaspoons salt
1 1/2 cups butter, softened to room temperature
Vegetable oil for deep frying
Sugar

In a large bowl of an electric mixer use the dough hook to mix together the flour, sugar, and yeast.

Mix in the eggs, one at a time to form a thick paste; continue to mix at medium speed for 15 more minutes, then add the salt. Add the softened butter, 1/2 cup at a time, while continuing to mix at medium speed.

Transfer dough to a large bowl, cover, and allow to rise at room temperature until doubled in bulk.

Refrigerate for 2 hours. Form the dough into 1-inch balls and allow it to rise once more at room temperature.

Heat oil to 375°F. Fry the dough until golden brown. Drain on paper towels. Roll in sugar.

Fill the malasadas with the lilikoi curd using a pastry bag.

The lilikoi curd is seriously one of the best things I have tasted in a long time. It's tart and sweet and buttery and custardy all at the same time, and you just want to start spreading it on everything. Then I tried a freshly fried malasada, and I knew the lilikoi curd had met its match. The outside was crispy from the frying and crunchy from the granulated sugar while the inside was soft and chewy and slightly sweet. I only wish I had been able to pipe in more of the lilikoi curd because the little squirt I got in there just wasn't enough.

reade more... Résuméabuiyad